Curiouser and Curiouser
by Living In My Imagination
Summary: When Isabelle's younger brother vanishes one night after following his sister and her best friend Clary to a party the two make a pact to find him no matter where they might end up: "Wonderland? That's just a kid's story" "And do you not believe in stories…? For I can tell you now, to survive in Wonderland Isabelle Lightwood you must remember one thing; All the stories are true."
1. See You Again

**_Curiouser and Curiouser _**_is my interpretation of what would happen when you take a bucket full of the amazing Mortal Instruments cast and throw them down the rabbit hole. This is my first fanfic for TMI that I've put up online though there are others in working progress and really the fact this first installment is now on here is really thanks to **JustAFantasyGirl **who is kind enough and amazing enough to have put up with me since childhood and kicks my ass at least every second day to get my butt in the chair and do some writing... so if you like this you have her to thank for the posting! _

_I've uploaded the first two chapters because I always feel one isn't enough to really get a feel for a story, especially since due to the nature of the story the chapters are not -in general- going to be miles long. Basically if you're new to me as a writer I want feedback- **I love feedback! **I crave it almost as much as I crave the moments when I can remove myself from the world and curl up with chocolate, a glass of wine (don't worry since I'm from the UK I am of age!) and the marvel-lous (See what I did there for ya Helen ;)) Game of Thrones._

_However enough rambling... this is the story of two rather messed up girls, the mother of all hangovers, a pact to save a lost brother and a whole other world they were not expecting. Stay tuned to discover where I've planked the rest of our beloved TMI characters throughout the weird and brilliant **Wonderland.**_

_**Remember: FEEDBACK PLEASE! **(I don't bite, I promise and I'll answer any questions/concerns/ideas you have if you send me them!)  
Rated M mainly for strong language and some content._

_-H_

* * *

The first thing Clary was aware of as she pried open her eyes was the smell of stale beer, vomit and tequila. Predictably her stomach reacted by lurching violently and causing her to scramble onto her hands and knees so that she could throw up into the toilet she'd been asleep beside. It was the fluffy pink bath mat that gave it away; she was in Isabelle's en suit and they had quite clearly been out on another bender.  
Pain wrenched through her back muscles and she felt as though her ribs might crack with the strain of heaving whatever take out food they'd binged on before passing out from her stomach and her knees felt bruised as they took her weight on the cold tiled floor. It was horrendously familiar, the nausea and the pounding head- it had been a fairly crappy summer and the only solution they had been able to conjure was to lose themselves in alcohol, crappy club music and any flurry of random boys that passed their way.  
Clary wiped her mouth on her forearm and pushed her sweat-soaked fringe from her forehead with a groan. An equally pathetic retort made her turn around and crawl towards the bedroom carpet which was much more forgiving on her sore, bare knees. Isabelle Lightwood, her best friend, was splayed out of the floor beside her bed, quite obviously after she had fallen off of it in search of a sick bucket in the night. She was still wearing her dress from the night before; a shimmering silver stretch of material that clung as tightly as a second skin, and her tights were ripped. With a determined grimace Clary reached her friend's side and shook her shoulder roughly, "Wake up Isabelle, shit we're a mess. Get up!"  
An arm came out of nowhere and smacked Clary across the back of the head. "Ouch! You bitch, _move_!"  
When she was finally conscious enough the dark haired girl pulled herself up and sat beside Clary who was leaning against the bed, bracing her hands on her knees. "What the fuck happened last night?" she moaned.  
"There was a lot of tequila," Isabelle muttered and Clary felt herself wretch. "Sore spot for you Fray?"  
"Fuck off."  
"Well we clearly had an awesome fucking night, what time is it?"  
The clock on the other side of the room was too far away for Clary to read through the hung-over haze so instead she dug her phone out of her pocket and swore, "It's out of battery."  
"I don't even know what I've done with mine."  
"Probably gambled it away in an attempt to win a ride in some rich guy's Mercedes again-"  
"Oh my God that was once, Clarissa give it a rest!" Isabelle pulled her long hair back and tied it into a loose bun. "Where's my brother? I'm taking it my mother is still incommunicado otherwise she'd have given us hell for all this by now."  
"She's probably at the Court House."  
"Yeah, yeah divorce is a bitch yadda yadda… still it's like my house is the home of the freakin' dead these days."  
Clary glanced sideways at her, "It's not her fault your father is a cheating son a bitch."  
"She's not exactly the house-wife type though is she… MAX!" She yelled suddenly and Clary cringed. "MAX WHAT TIME IS IT?"  
The house echoed in silence and after a few moments the two girls looked at each other. "Maybe he's still sleeping, or he could have gone with your mom…"  
"Mom would never take him to her lawyer's… I'm pretty sure she's sleeping with the smarmy bastard- no he's got to be in the house." She dragged herself to her feet and Clary followed her from the room calling out to the youngest of the Lightwood children.  
"Max?!"  
After a sweep of the house they regrouped in the hall in Isabelle stamped her foot impatiently, "MAX COME OUT RIGHT NOW THIS ISN'T FUCKING FUNNY ANY MORE!" There was a hysterical note to her voice and Clary put a hand on her arm, she knew why she was panicking… the disappearance of her elder brother six years ago meant that hide and seek was definitely no longer a favourite game.  
"Don't panic before there is cause," she reminded her, "There could still be a logical explanation to all of this."  
"Then where is he? He's only nine Clary he can't just wander out of the house alone…" she broke off with a horrified expression. "We- we didn't take him with us last night, did we?"  
Clary felt herself go pale. "Why would we? We were going out on the circuit…"  
"No. It was dinner, we, we were going for dinner and then we met that guy with the flyers for the party-"  
"We would have brought Max home first," Clary whispered, "We're not that irresponsible."  
Isabelle put her hands over her face, "We did bring him home. I know we did. I remember telling him to stay put and not stay up too late watching cartoons and I left him… a house key just in case we-"  
Clary swallowed her rising bile, "He wouldn't have followed us, surely Izzy."  
"He wanted to come!"  
"He's nine! He knows better than that!"  
Keys jingled in the lock and the two turned to witness Mayrse Lightwood walk into the house in her tight blank pant suit and her hair the same colour as her daughter's piled high onto her head in a tight bun. "What's going on?" she asked sharply, "Isabelle Lightwood what the hell are you wearing and why are you still dressed like a prostitute at two in the afternoon?"  
"Mom we-"  
"Can't remember anything? Well that doesn't surprise me you're drinking like your father these days! You're setting a horrible example to your brother- where is he?"  
Clary opened her mouth to try and explain but Isabelle surprised them both by acting out of character and bursting into tears as a horrible monster of dread made home in Clary's stomach. What had they done?

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_As I said, second chapter shall be up in mere moments! I hope you enjoyed the short introduction and please, please let me know what you think! :) _


	2. Consequences

_I hope you enjoyed the first chapter, I basically wanted in this story to make Clary and Isabelle a little less contained (especially in Clary's case) because it fitted the vibe of the story I was aiming for... so remember I want to hear from you, did you like it? Did it make you wish you had never set eyes on the title? Somewhere in between? _

_It is going to be quite fast paced so there isn't much hanging around, these girls are blunt, except for the arguing they get to the point fairly sharpish but don't worry there will be time for a little guessing game as to where I've hidden some more characters! _

_-H_

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"Well they were no fucking help at all!" Isabelle snapped as the front doors closed and the officers that had been called in to search for Max Lightwood had left. "What was all that shit about us-"  
"They were just being thorough Izzy, the neighbours saw us bring Max home and leave again in different clothes. We're not actually suspects."  
"My mother is never going to forgive me for this, she's actually speaking to my dad face to face. That's how much she hates me, she'll talk to _him _and not me."  
Clary sighed, "Your mom does not hate you. She's upset and being a responsible parent… for a change."  
"What did your mom say?"  
She looked down, "I still haven't called her."  
"You have to speak to her at some point," Isabelle pointed out quietly. "You haven't… since the funeral-"  
"Can we talk about something else?" Clary snapped, "Like the fact you're deflecting because you're worried about Max?"  
"The cops really think that our family is hideous. First Alec goes missing and now Max…" She stood up suddenly. "I'm not just going to sit here and neither are you. Come on."  
"Where?" Clary stood up wearily and followed Isabelle upstairs to her bombsite of a bedroom. "Isabelle come back you're acting crazy."  
She was rifling through her drawers pulling out clothes at speed, "Get changed, we still look like shit."  
Clary caught the black jeans that were thrown her way, "We're hung over to fuck Izzy and we're on house arrest remember."  
"Well I don't give a shit! My brother is out there and we are going to find him. If he did follow us to that party -which I'm starting to think he did considering there is fuck all sign of a break in here- then we are going to have to re-trace our steps of last night and find him ourselves."  
Clary found herself staring at her best friend with new eyes, "I think I'm still drunk," she muttered, "You definitely are."  
"I am going to lose my mind if we just sit here Clary, now are you my best friend or not?"  
"Not, but of course I'm coming anyway because you've already lost your mind and you're the only person keeping me sane these days so you kind of have to get it back."  
Isabelle sent her a half smile and threw a black tank top across the room, "Get your army boots and game face on Fray, we're breaking our cardinal rule." "We're wearing tube tops in a dive bar?"  
"We're going to find out _exactly _what we got up to last night."  
Clary groaned and headed off to shower, "Next time I get to chose the disaster we wake up to!"  
"At least I'm letting you shower first."  
She re-emerged at the bathroom door holding Isabelle's lacy pink bra in front of her, "I just found this in the bath-"  
"I must have gotten changed in the bathroom last night before you passed out there."  
"-It's full of whipped cream." Isabelle's jaw dropped and Clary dumped it on top of the growing laundry pile, "Are you _sure _it's not worth losing your mind, this is the one rule we never break. There's a reason we don't have camera phones you know."  
"Will never make that mistake again," Izzy muttered, searching for her knee-length black ruffled pinafore. "But breaking our rule seems a small penance for losing the only brother I have left." She heard the shower burst into life and Clary's yelp as it was colder than she was expecting, her eyes drifting to the photograph on her nightstand. Baby three year old Max sitting on her lap and Alec at her shoulder; all dark haired, all together just months before everything would get torn apart forever… her parents wouldn't survive the loss of their eldest, their marriage doomed to fail, she didn't know what would happen now if her search failed. She had to bring Max home.

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_Okay I'll give you that this was a short chapter, but the next one is longer I promise ;) _


	3. Through the Looking Glass

_Chapter three and I hope you all like it! :) _

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"So where do we start?" Clary had followed Isabelle as she'd shimmied down the drainpipe and exited the Lightwood residence through the back garden.  
Izzy rummaged through her pocket and emerged with a crumpled flyer. "This is the party we crashed last night, I found it under my bed while you were taking up my shower time."  
She handed it over and Clary scanned it, "Some frat guy had a loft party? Doesn't sound like it would normally be on our radar."  
"That's why I thought, but look on the back."  
In a black marker pen someone had scrawled the address of another residence on the street of the party advertised on the flyer with an extra added note underneath detailing that they were only admitted without a plus one, "I'm getting a flashback of a boy with green hair and too many buckles on his jacket," Clary said.  
"Yep, he invited us as we left the restaurant. We got handed this flyer by some frat boys and he chased them off and said we could make an appearance at this exclusive thrash he wouldn't shut up about."  
"You're fairly clear on the details."  
"I hadn't had a bottle of red wine over dinner, not including the pre-dinner cocktails."  
"Okay so this is where we start," Clary said, ignoring her, "What's the plan, we just show up at this place and hope they let us in to search for clues like we're part of the fucking Mystery Inc gang?"  
"Maybe if you were in a nice tight Daphne costume… it'd go real nice with your hair."  
Clary shoved her arm hard, "That would make you Velma, I'm not sure you can pull off intelligent. This plan of yours certainly stinks."  
"We're going to break in," Isabelle said decidedly. "If of course our obvious charms don't do the trick of letting us flirt our way in the door."  
Clary shook her head, the strange feeling still in her stomach. "I gotta bad feeling Lightwood, you might want to prepare yourself for a shit storm, especially if the cops catch us."  
"I'm in my running heels."  
She hitched her backpack higher and wished she'd brought more than one hipflask. "If this party was so hard for us to get into you really think that Max would have managed it?"  
"I just don't know Clary, some of the people we've come across on our nights out would probably find it amusing to let an innocent little kid into a crazy party just to see what happened. God what if they drugged him?"  
"Let's not get ahead of ourselves. Come on it'll take forever to walk, let's grab a cab."  
"I'm starting to get your weird feeling Fray, it's contagious."  
"Let's hope it's the worst thing you've caught this weekend."  
They rode the rest of the cab ride in silence until it pulled up at the address on the back of the flyer, "Well," Isabelle said, "Now is our chance to find out."

"It looks like a crack den," Clary said, wrinkling her nose.  
"It probably looks much better when we're less sober," Isabelle retorted, pressing the buzzer a third time. "It doesn't look like anyone is home."  
Clary shoved her hands in her pockets and shifted her weight between her feet, it was cold in the evening air. "How much exactly do you remember from last night?"  
Isabelle shrugged, "It wasn't the kind of weekend we normally partake in. It was all a blur of colours and weird little drinks in tiny bottles and pills."  
"I can barely remember anything from the moment we arrived and I don't remember leaving," Clary admitted. "I have a memory of standing in front of a make shift bar, staring in this massive mirror and thinking I could see a rabbit-" Isabelle scoffed, "Hey I was fucked up and so were you! But after that it's nothing, nothing at all just blankness."  
"You're right Fray you were fucked up."  
"Well so is this idea- no one is in so stop ringing the freakin' buzzer my head is killing me!" She grabbed the other girl's wrist. "I'm not saying give up," she added when Isabelle glowered at her, "I'm saying there's got to be a better way."  
She sighed, "Well then, we're going to have to get creative."  
"I hate it when you say things like that."  
From her hair Isabelle removed a pin and started to fiddle with the lock on the door, Clary sighed but made not move to stop her. The lock clicked and Isabelle shouldered open the door, pulling on her leather gloves, "How many times have you done this?"  
"There are so many things you don't want to know about me Clarissa."  
They ascended the stairs which were covered in layers of grime and emerged in an open, empty and deserted loft. The floorboards were stripped clear and the windows blacked out with smears of paint and soot. "Well this is… depressing."  
"What exactly were you expecting?"  
"Something a little less… bare?"  
Isabelle started rifling through a dump of rags and rubbish that had been piled like a bonfire in the corner while Clary swept the rest of the loft, "I don't think there's anything here Izzy."  
A massive woven sheet was covering what looked like a painting that was leaning against the back wall. Curious, Clary reached out and pulled, revealing an elegant and ornate mirror with an amazing golden frame. It was almost the height of the loft and several arms lengths wider than her. Mesmerised Clary stared in the reflective surface, seeing past her own image… something else was there. She glanced over her shoulder but the room behind her was empty. "Hey Isabelle… I think, I think I've found something."  
Her friend appeared at her shoulder, "This thing is fucking massive, but unless your telling me Max is hiding behind it…"  
"Look closer," Clary said, leaning forward. Isabelle grabbed her wrist with an impatient noise. "I think- I can see… something…" Her free hand made contact with the cool surface and it swirled beneath her fingers the images that had been faint before suddenly became much sharper.  
"What the fuck?!" Isabelle exclaimed and the two of them were jolted forwards, disappearing from the dark loft and falling into something beyond their world.


	4. Strange Beginnings

_I realise that this is only the fourth chapter and they've already taken the tumble through the Looking Glass but I really wanted the story centred around the adventures in Wonderland and the introduction of the other characters so things will (hopefully) move pretty quickly. If you have any ideas or questions just PM me and I promise I'll do my best to answer! Obviously of course the concern is the hunt for young Max but I promise there will be more than a few surprises on the way ;) Please review! _

_-H_

* * *

Clary landed first, and was shortly crushed as Isabelle fell on top of her. The portal or whatever it was that they had come through had vanished, abandoning them in a tall and strange forest like nothing they'd ever seen before.  
"Where the fuck are we? We that some kind of trick door?"  
"Don't laugh but I'm not even sure we're in New York any more Iz."  
"Where are we, _Oz_? Fuck this shit Clary we must have disturbed some kind of dust in the loft, maybe some leftover crack… we're tripping."  
"Oh and both having the exact same vision. Common sense Izzy we're not stoned."  
The other girl flicked her hair, "Common sense doesn't exactly point to magic either Fray-" A loud wailing noise broke her off and they backed into each other for protection, "Then again I'm not sure I want to be proved wrong by a sudden abundance of evidence."  
"This place is so weird," Clary exclaimed quietly. "Look at those flowers, they're like something out of a fairytale, they're bigger than me!"  
"That's not hard," Isabelle muttered, grabbing her friend's wrist. "Don't touch them! Jesus Clary we have to be careful until we can find a way out of here."  
Clary turned to her, "Maybe we're not meant to find our way out just yet."  
"What the fuck are you on?"  
"Izzy-" she pointed over into the direction of some large leafed plants that were surrounded by strange bubble-shaped pods, "Izzy isn't that Max's sweater?"  
The navy v-neck sweater had been a gift from Isabelle after one of her many shopping sprees. She picked it up and felt tears touch her waterline, "This can't be real. It can't."  
"Maybe he did follow us to the party," Clary said, "Maybe he did what we did and touched the mirror. It's the last thing I remember seeing before I blacked out."  
"You also saw a rabbit, has he turned into one of those? Or maybe a rat!" She was bordering on hysterical, "God Clary look at this freakin' jungle how are we going to find him here? No one knows where we are, no one would believe this! There could be all kinds of predators out there…"  
"He could still be close by-"  
"MAX? MAX ARE YOU THERE?"  
She clamped a hand over her mouth, "Oh yeah tons of predators to eat a kid but we'll just yell real _subtly_ and hope that doesn't draw them out." Isabelle pushed her off. "Let's just figure out a path and we'll have to improvise from there. There's no other way, maybe we can find someone to help us?" The sound of a stream reached their ears and Clary gently tugged on Isabelle's sleeve, "Standing here won't solve anything, he's obviously passed this way and continued on, which is what we should do."  
Acceptance finally reached Isabelle's eyes and she nodded, "If we ever find Max and get out of here I swear to God Clary I am cleaning up my act. This would never have happened if we weren't so determined to be screw ups."  
"We've had our reasons," Clary argued quietly.  
"Not reason enough to put my brother in harms way," Isabelle retorted. "If you don't agree with me you'll have to find another wing-woman to hold you hair." "Well before we break up how about we check out those weird lights over there. They could mean people."  
"Or savage killers with huts made from human skin," Isabelle muttered, following Clary through the alien underbrush.  
"Then a family of nutters is about to get the most fabulous new home, because I happen to know with the small fortune you spend on skincare you have the best New York City has to offer."  
"Oh every cloud with it's silver lining… I just hope whoever or whatever it is it's vegetarian."  
"I doubt it, carbs are so last season-"  
Isabelle hit Clary's shoulder. "Don't think I won't offer you up as a sacrifice to save myself and Max."  
A hint of sincerity touched Clary's tone, "Don't discount me volunteering Izzy, it's partially my fault we're all here."

They followed the glow of the lights through the underbrush and emerged beside a small, narrow river. "I think if we follow this we'll reach the lights," Isabelle said, standing on her tiptoes to try and see ahead. Clary didn't argue and they carefully picked their way, sticking to the shadows so they wouldn't be seen.  
It was night in the forest, and yet the plants gave off a weird life that made them thrive like it was daytime. "This place is fucked up," Clary muttered to herself as she accidentally trod on a root of a tree and swore she head it sigh in pain.  
The river were slow moving and they were walking upstream towards the source. It curved around a sharp bend of a large boulder and the two girls rounded it only to have their jaws hit the ground. On an island in the centre of the pool at the bottom of a massive waterfall was the skeleton of a huge, fanged beast that had been stripped clean by age and time… or some kind of ferocious vulture-like thing. Isabelle choked, "Holy shit Clary what is that?"  
"I'm not sure, but I think it might have had wings…"  
"Those are its ribs."  
"Well they're sticking out at a weird angle…"  
"Something clearly chopped the thing's head off Clarissa I doubt it fell gracefully."  
Clary looked up, "Probably from up there actually." The lights that they had seen through the trees turned out to belong to a vine-type plant that was growing up the side of the waterfall, the buds on its leaves were lit up like a Christmas tree and she said after a moment, "Is it me or does that look climbable to you?"  
"You want me to climb a leafy, glowing ladder next to a giant dead thing up the side of a freakin' waterfall?"  
"Do you want to find Max?" Isabelle threw her hands in the air and Clary continued, "If we have a better vantage point we might find something. We could see over the trees from up there, what if there's a house, or a village or something and we keep walking right by it? Come on-" she pulled her by the wrist and walked them past the deformed skeleton and through the edge of the pool towards the ladder.  
"This is so not safe," Isabelle began to climb, finding easy foot-holes in the plant which did appear to have grown to accommodate someone scampering up the cliff face.  
"It's not as high as you think. Just don't look down."  
Finally, when they emerged at the top and took a moment lying flat on their backs to catch their breath Isabelle sat up and looked around. There was less of a forest up here and what there was only grew very close to the river. Most of the trees looked almost like the had been burned and trampled on. It was a very different sight to below. "It's like two completely different worlds, one up this level and the other down there."  
"There must have been some kind of fire."  
"I hope that fucking beast down there wasn't a dragon."  
"You said they were ribs not wings!"  
Across the forest that they could now see was vast and surprisingly sinister to look at from above Clary thought she could see stonework among the trees. "Look, is that- a gate? Or a castle, something at least, that's definitely brick." She turned to look at Isabelle who wasn't paying the least bit attention, "Oh for the love of God Izzy what's caught your eye now?"  
"I thought I saw a shadow," she said slowly, "Something- something was definitely moving behind us."  
"Well I'm sure that we should go have a look over there," Clary pointed and Isabelle tore her eyes from her shoulder to look. "It almost seems like ruins-" "Clary look out!" Isabelle screamed suddenly as a shadow from the sky loomed over them and something with auburn feathers and large talons grabbed Clarissa by the arms and hauled her into the air. "CLARY!"  
A tremendous and harsh call echoed from the creature and Isabelle dived for the river as another of the flying things attempted to grab her too. "ISABELLE!" She fell into the icy water and was swept by the current in the direction of the fall. She latched on to a rock to try and stop herself going over the edge but the bird-thing that looked like a cross between a massive raven/eagle/griffon came at her again and with a watery scream she let go and went tumbling down the waterfall.


	5. All The Stories Are True

_A slightly longer chapter now, after Isabelle's journey over the waterfall... I hope you enjoy it and please review! :)_

_-H_

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When Isabelle dragged herself up the bank and into the shadow of the large dead thing on the dry patch in the centre of the pool she glared up at the sky that was growing steadily lighter by the minute and scanned for any sing of the giant birds or Clary. There was nothing, only soft clouds with a pinkish hue and dawn breaking over a horizon somewhere. She swore softly, fighting the urge to cry. One of the bird's had succeeded in sinking a talon into her shoulder and she tore a strip from her skirt to cover it, resisting the shivers that were threatening a cold from her dip in the icy lagoon.  
Whatever this place was, it was fucked up, and she couldn't wait to find Max -and now Clary too- and get back home to New York. Before she could think for too long and upset herself, Isabelle did what she had always done best and just willed herself not to think about it. Clary was savvy and would find a way to escape whatever fate the birds had in store for her, she had to focus on Max who was much younger and less street smart. Then she'd find her friend and rain hell in this hell until they found a way home.  
She pushed herself up from the dirt and waded over to the shore on the opposite side from where they had climbed. The stone structure Clary had spotted seemed as good a start as any and determinedly she began to push her way through the dense trees, glad she hadn't lost her backpack in the fall since it was stocked with some drinkable water and a few energy bars; Isabelle was always prepared. The plants that made a kind of tunnel as she walked seemed to be growing taller by the second, either that or she was shrinking, Isabelle thought and she sped up, ignoring the ache in her back from falling over the cliff. She was banged up and her head was pounding but if she could wake up from three days in a party basement with no natural light and only vodka for company only to attend some fancy dinner her mother had hosted dressed to the nines and only able to throw up inconspicuously in a plant pot after every second course, she could hike through some jungle in heeled army boots to find her brother.  
As the sun got higher and the air in the jungle got hotter she began to miss Clary beside her. They had been close for so long, almost since Alec had gone missing when Isabelle was ten -six years of solid friendship forged in hell- she had always been sure that the two of them could survive anything. Clary had gone through her own troubles and despite her reluctance to speak to her mother Isabelle began to wish they had told someone, one person, where they were going… but that was the problem of only surviving the two of them, when they did everything together, no one was around to pick up the end of the thread and follow the trail when they needed help. And now Clary was gone and the hike was getting harder and harder until Isabelle didn't bother fighting the tears any more and let them fall freely, the moisture welcome on her cheeks. She had been walking for hours in the direction she thought Clary had pointed in, but hunger and exhaustion were beginning to get to her- she wasn't exactly at the peak of physical prime and health given the amount she smoked and drank and the nicotine cravings were causing her hands to shake something awful.  
Just as she was about to give up completely and curl up in a ball until night when it would at least be cooler she saw something grey through the haze of greenery and raced towards it. When the leaves of the plant she'd had to push her way through finally fell aside she gasped and craned her neck as far back as it could go so that she could take it all in. For the first time she was glad Clary wasn't yattering on beside her, because she had been dead on; it was a ruin, and it was a gate… of sorts.

After a pause to grab something to eat Isabelle began to slowly walk around one of the massive stone bases of the pillars. They had to stand at least a hundred feet tall which is why they had been able to see them from so far away… only what was it a gate to? There was no driveway, house, castle or kingdom to be found and while the only thing that remained left of the gates themselves was the frail edges and the pillars it didn't look like it had ever been part of a larger wall or perimeter. They were simply…. Gates, randomly placed in a jungle. And unless Max was sitting on top of the stonework he was definitely not around. Frustrated she punched the rock and instantly winced as it split the skin on her knuckles, Isabelle opened her mouth to swear and then froze as she heard an icy chuckle from behind her.  
She swung around but the space in the clearing was empty. Racing back to her backpack she pulled it onto her shoulders and slipped out her penknife which she was sure wouldn't do much against any kind of jungle beast but would be better than a fist fight. As she took a defensive position she heard it again; the kind of chuckle you hear when someone is amused at your expense in the most patronising way it makes your blood boil just hearing it. "Whose there?" There was no answer and she snarled again, "I said whose there? Stop giggling like a moron and come out so I can see you."  
When a voice answered she almost dropped her knife, "Feisty aren't you little human?"  
"_Who are you?!_"  
"I can be many people; a guide, a friend, a helpful shadow or young human, I can be something much less desirable to a girl in your position."  
"Why are you still hiding if you so clearly aren't afraid of me?"  
"Very well." And out from behind the gateway stepped… a cat.  
A beautiful blue Persian cat with baleful eyes and a strangely human smile. "Church?" Isabelle said in disbelief. That cat blinked, "You look like Church, our old cat?"  
Suddenly it was much closer and hovering in the air inches from her nose. Isabelle stumbled back, "And who, are _we?_" it asked curiously.  
"But cats can't talk, or hover or fly… what _are _you?"  
"I can be many things…" the cat began and Isabelle got impatient.  
"Enough with answers that are not answers! We, me and my brothers… well, brother- actually," she sighed, "I'm here because I'm looking for my brother. You haven't seen him on your… hoverings, have you?"  
The cat rolled over in midair so it was belly up, "I have seen many things-" She made to walk away, "Oh I wouldn't go that way if I were you. While I might not have seen your brother I have seen other things, many things, much darker things, heading into that part of the forest." Isabelle stopped and turned her head enough to show she was listening and the cat rolled back over and hovered towards her slowly, "If it is answers you seek and safety you seek and a companion through the trees then follow me!"  
She turned around fully only to see that the cat had disappeared, "Wait- what? Where are you? You can't ask me to follow you and then-"  
"Disappear?" When his voice echoed she saw only his wickedly human grin appear in the air in front of her face and she felt her eyes grow wide.  
"Where am I?"  
The rest of the cat's head appeared and he looked dreadfully amused, "You're in a place of magic like no other, my dear…?"  
"Isabelle," she said, "My name is Isabelle Lightwood and my brother's name is Max- hey wait!"  
The cat -well, the cat's head- had started to float away in the opposite direction, "For fuck sake will you just stay still and stop disappearing? I could use some help. If you haven't seen my brother can't you think of anyone who might? Anyone who will help me, I just want to find him and my friend and go home."  
The cat's merciless eyes turned on her once more, "A nasty scratch on your shoulder."  
"I was attacked by some crazy birds by the waterfall, they took my friend. We came here to find my brother Max."  
"A nasty scratch indeed, but so brave is the girl who seeks her brother and fears for her friend in the hands of the talons. Well then my dear Isabelle, that shall not do, you alone in such dreadful woods. I will help you find a friend who will take you on the road to the end… of your journey here in Wonderland." "Wonderland?" Isabelle stared at the cat incredulously, "You've got to be fucking kidding me, that's just a kids story!"  
The cat was now there, full in body and eyes wide and staring into her own, "And do you not believe in stories…? For I can tell you now, to survive in Wonderland Isabelle Lightwood you must remember one thing; All the stories are _true_."


	6. Into The Maze

_So we found out what happened to Isabelle after she took a tumble over the waterfall so now it's Clary's turn, I hope you enjoy it and as usual please review! If you're enjoying this story and you have friends who love TMI start nagging and send them this way... but for now we find out what happened to Clary after she was kidnapped _

_-H_

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Clary didn't know how long the winged creature that had scooped her up like a field mouse had been carrying her, but her arms were long past the stage of aching and her entire body was numb from being carried in its talons. The motion sickness of watching the ground below speed away had been too much and after she had watched Isabelle fall over the waterfall and out of sight she had screamed herself hoarse until there was nothing left to do but go limp and close her eyes to conserve energy.  
It was only when the beast shifted to accompany a new air current and took hold of her jacket rather than her arms did Clary open her eyes and sigh in relief as the pressure eased a bit and some of the feeling came back to her fingers. She flexed her legs experimentally and looked down. They had flown for hours, crossing the burned wastelands and now were over some kind of strange thorned jungle. It looked like trees of barbed wire that curled and curled in rolls, stretching out as far as she could see in every direction. Wherever she was being taken, she didn't think that with this as their front yard they were going to be someone she wanted to meet. She bit her lip and scanned the ground more closely until she spotted a rare splash of colour in the maze of thorns. If she timed this wrong she was probably be impaled, but Clary decided a quick death was better than facing something completely unknown in a world that was so completely unfamiliar. She didn't know who she had pissed off so much to be kidnapped since they hadn't met a soul since they'd arrived but she was under the impression that as the giant bird hadn't taken her to a vast nest to be fed so some darling chick, it was under orders… plus it hadn't done anything to harm her- yet.  
Focusing on the tuft of grass that was barely two metres long and fighting to survive in this strange wilderness below, Clary wriggled her arms out of the sleeves of her jacket and only let go of the hem when she was sure she would land on the soft greenery and not the surrounding bush. As she fell she heard the second bird that had meant to grab Isabelle call out in a loud, protesting squak, and seconds after she had successfully landed she rolled to her feet and tried to sprint for cover. Only, her legs weren't working properly as they were still numb, so instead she had to drag herself along the rocky ground and into the nearest thicket of brambles that spiralled in a curl so tall that she could easily have walked along the inside of the bush, as long as she was careful to avoid the spikes that pointed inwards. The birds were so large that the bare patch wasn't wide enough for them to land, so instead with outrage they pecked at the thorns in an attempt to pull her out and back into the air. Clary curled into a tight ball and tucked her head between her knees, feeling their sharp beaks scratch her exposed back until she cried out in pain and forced herself to run on her unsteady legs along the tunnel of thorns until the bracken was so thick above her that the creatures couldn't reach without stabbing themselves in the process. When finally she heard the sound of their beating wings she uncoiled from her protective ball and slowly climbed some of the thorns that were large enough to stand on until her head poked out above the mess and she saw them flying off into the distance.  
Her relief was short lived, while she was no longer in the custody of evil one and evil two she was now stranded hours away from Isabelle in some weird barbed wire wood with no food, no water, no jacket and no hope. Clary fell back to the floor that was wound with the roots of the strange thorned plant and earth. The roots and structure of the thing felt almost wiry, but the thorns were as sharp as steel. It was like nothing she'd seen before and from the air she knew it went on for miles in a never-ending maze. Slowly she made her way back to the one patch of grass that had provided her landing strip and ran her hands slowly through the yellowing tufts wondering how it had survived for so long once the plant had taken over. Trying not to despair she looked up at the sky trying to gauge the time but the thick clouds were so dark and grey that it was impossible to tell whether it was day or night and the sharp wind was cool and unforgiving on the long scratches in her back and shoulders. Clary wasn't even aware that she was crying until the tears fell onto her arms that were curled around her knees. She touched her face in surprise, she hadn't cried in years, not when her father had left, not when her mother had remarried, not when her favourite teddy had been put through the wash and dismembered, and certainly not when- she shut all thoughts of the funeral down and wiped the evidence from her cheeks rashly. She hadn't cried since she was a very small child and she would not cry now. She was a survivor and even if she couldn't make it through this she would die with dignity… curled in a ball in some wasteland starving to death, her subconscious added snidely.  
She pushed her hair from her face, wishing she hadn't lost her backpack along with her jacket, and something white caught her eye in the field of dark thorns. At first she thought she'd imagined it, until it appeared again very briefly about four feet from where she'd first glimpsed it. It was oddly familiar… and again! This time she saw a fluffy little tail and realised why she recognised it, "The rabbit!" she muttered. This time when it jumped it came into full view with long ears, a small pink nose and a… pocket watch? When it saw her it backed away in fright and began to scurry down one of the long tunnels of the sharp tongued plant. "Wait!" she cried, getting to her feet and giving chase. "Wait, come back I'm not going to hurt you!"  
As she rounded the corner she saw it paused at the intersection with another branch and it was studying the pocket watch with what appeared to be a frown, "Oh my ears and whiskers how late it's getting!"  
Clary gasped and it turned and jumped when it saw her, "Did you- did you just _talk_?"  
"No time to talk I'm late!"  
It made to hop away again down the right-hand tunnel and Clary ran to stand in its way, "Hang on, please. I'm looking for a way out of this maze, can you help me?" I'm talking to a white rabbit with a pocket watch, she thought to herself, I think Isabelle might have been right because I've completely fucking lost it. "I was taken, by those bird things-" she pointed up and rabbit gasped.  
"Deary me, lost indeed. Shouldn't be down here, nasty things down here. Won't survive down here."  
"So can you help me?"  
The rabbit paused mid-sentence, "Pardon me?"  
"I said, can you help me. I need to get out of this maze and find my friend Isabelle. We came here looking for her brother Max, he's only nine."  
"Nine! Oh no look at the time, I'm late!"  
Sighing Clary reached out and took the tiny pocket watch from his grasp, "Okay I get it, you're late, but do you know what I'm late to?- a date with a nice bottle of vino so I can pretend this was all a bad dream-" she held it out of reach as the little thing jumped for it, "So can you help me," she lowered it back down into his reach, "Or not?"  
"Help you find a way out of the fields of thorns? There are many paths not many safe, not any safe any more!"  
"But you're clearly going somewhere, can't you take me as far as you can, just get me out of here and point me in the direction of the waterfall above the jungle…"  
"No, no, no! You have it all wrong, you must come, come with me now. But first…" The white rabbit reached into his waistcoat and pulled out a small bottle of clear pink liquid. It had a tiny tag that read-  
"Drink me?" Clary said aloud. "I have to say I'm not normally this easy Mr Rabbit, I usually at least have to know a man's name before I let him get a drink in me." It wasn't strictly true, plus I'm talking to a damn rabbit in a waistcoat she thought, again wondering how long she'd been completely out of her mind. "Stop being so stubborn!" The tone of the rabbit was much less jittery all of a sudden, he actually sounded a lot like a teenager. Clary stared and he cleared his throat and returned to his singsong voice, "So many paths through the thorns, but you're too big for tunnels I've found, to get us off this awful ground before the creatures with fangs and horns find you before the darkness dawns."  
"That was terrible," she told him, "Did you just improvise that because it was really bad." At his reproachful frown she rolled her eyes and removed the tiny stopper from the vital, downing it in a shot. The muscles in her abdomen suddenly restricted and the breath caught in her throat, "What the fuck?"  
The thorns seemed to loom in size and all of a sudden she was looking _up _at the white rabbit who smirked at her, "That's better, now you're the right size."  
"I was always small but this is fucking pushing it!" Clary was now drowning in the fabric of her tank top that had been on the tight side before. With a sigh the rabbit produced a pocket knife and set to work cutting away the extra pieces until he had made a kind of make-shift toga that covered her completely, although there was nothing he could do about the shoes.  
"You'll have to go barefoot."  
"I'll have to have another potion when we get out the other side," she argued, "Isabelle will never let me hear the fucking end of this."  
A squaking cry from above made them both dive into the shadows, "Night is falling, we must hurry! Stick to my tail and do not trust the shadows on your shoulder, they will deceive you, now come!"  
The rabbit set off hopping along the tunnel and Clary ran alongside him, keeping up as best she could and glad she had spent so many hours on the track after school running off her problems before going out drinking with Isabelle. "You swear you'll get me out of this maze?"  
"We're late, we're very late!"  
She sighed and continued to follow, "Never mind."


	7. Kingdoms Rise, Kingdoms Fall

_Sorry for the wait between uploades but I've tried to include something from both Clary and Isabelle's stories, let me know what ya think! :) _

_-H_

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Church, or the floating cat, or whatever it was had been leading Isabelle through the jungle through the rest of the day and late into the night. Every time she mentioned stopping for a rest he would just disappear for a while and leave her wandering in circles until she apologised loud enough for him to reappear in the branches somewhere and continue floating ahead. There were a lot of noises as many of the nocturnal creatures came into their element and Isabelle found herself glancing nervously over her shoulder more and more as the night wore on. "Okay and don't fucking disappear on me this time, but I seriously need to stop!"  
It was almost impossible for her to believe she'd now been in this fictional hell more than twenty-four hours. Church sighed heavily, "Well well if needs must."  
With as gasp of relief Isabelle sank to the ground and pushed her hair off her face. "How far away does this friend of your live anyway?"  
"Oh did I say he was a friend?"  
She looked up sharply, "I bloody hope so, you're not taking me to some crazy psychopath are you?"  
"Oh he's certainly mad."  
It was too late to argue and turn back. Church had led her through the strange gates that he had silently refused to answer any of her questions about and had wound through tall purple plants until the ground beneath her feet started to resemble something of a trail. He might be secretive and less than friendly but he had saved her time getting lost… at least, she hoped so. But she was out of options. "How long will it take for me to find out that for myself?"  
Church looked up at the sky contemplatively, "Our journey depends on a number of things-"  
"Forget I asked," she muttered, coming to her feet. Something white and stone caught her eye- a pillar, like the gate it was attached to nothing and seemed randomly set in the jungle. It looked almost like a chess piece. "What's that?"  
"It is a fraction of the past, left here as a reminder."  
"A reminder of what?"  
She began to follow again and this time Church led her more slowly as the night drew closer to the dawn. "Once ago this was a kingdom, the White Kingdom and home to many of people and creatures who sought refuse under the King. The outskirts fell first, but later the last defences were too overpowered by the Hearts and the kingdom fell to the red. Only pieces remain this far into the now red kingdom."  
Isabelle wasn't sure she had completely understood what he had said, but the gist was clear. An old regime had died and a new one was in place… "The white and the red?"  
"The Queen on Hearts upon her bloody throne, and the rest of us squander here, in the jungle of old. A memory of old Wonderland." As he spoke they broke through a tree line and Isabelle almost gasped. A road cut through the jungle in a single straight line of stone, it seemed so out of place, out of character, she could hardly believe her eyes. "And now the next part of your journey Isabelle my dear." She turned to see all that was left of the cat was his unnerving human grin that came so close to whisper in her ear, "Stay off the path until you find your path or risk the traffic of the ghost road." And then he disappeared completely.

For Clary the journey with the White Rabbit was fast becoming a testing one. Each breathless question she asked was answered with a poorly constructed riddle or rhyme and her feet were beginning to feel the pain of stumbling across the loose rocks that were much sharper now she was so small and barefoot. She knew he had warned her not to look back at the strange noises that she was sure were following them through the maze of thorns but the temptation was growing to check behind her almost to the point where she couldn't resist. The White Rabbit showed no signs of coming to rest any time soon until very suddenly he stopped stock still in the middle of a tunnel, his ears picking up something hers couldn't hope to hear. "What is it?"  
She bent over to brace her hands on her knees to catch her breath. His nose twitched, "Something on our shoulder."  
"What?"  
The next noise she heard was a terrible roar much like Isabelle in response to a Monday morning alarm clock and she ducked for cover under a huge thorn, covering her ears with her hands. "No, no we're out of time!"  
"Stop checking that fucking pocket watch and hide!" Clary shouted at him. Something dark was brewing at the end of the tunnel and ignoring the White Rabbit Clary glanced over her shoulder so see that the thing- whatever it was, had blood red slits for eyes that were set into a mask of smoke and shadow. "Run! We must run!"  
His paw hit her arm in an attempt to pull her forwards but instead due to her smaller size it sent Clary sprawling in the dirt. She coughed and scrambled to her feet as the thing gave another roar and continued to advance. "In here!"  
This was another voice, not the White Rabbit, and when she looked up Clary's jaw dropped open. If she had found it strange to encounter a snow white rabbit in a paisley waistcoat with a golden pocket watch then what she saw now was sure to cause her to completely rethink everything she had thought she had ever known. It was a brown mouse in a golden tunic, wielding the smallest and thinnest sword Clary had ever seen. "I warn you!" the mouse shouted in the direction of the impending beast, "Come no closer!"  
Her long tail snapped out and coiled around Clary's wrist, pulling her towards the entrance to a tiny burrow she hadn't noticed before. The White Rabbit dived into it and Clary followed with the mouse close on her heels. Deprived of its prey they heard the shadowed-creature spitting furiously and began to sprint along the burrow that grew darker with each step. "Do not think about what there is or isn't to see and follow the path that's under your feet!"  
"Oh great another person who talks like a moronic, poorly written character," Clary muttered and the mouse nudged her forwards with the sword, "Watch where you're pointing that thing!"  
"I'll take your eye if you stop running!"  
Eventually Clary's eyes managed to detect a slight lightening of the burrow and she gasped in relief when morning light poured through an opening and the White Rabbit slowed down in front of her. Together the three of them emerged on a slope above another kind of forest, this one much more like the burned trees above the waterfall where she had first been taken. "Am I back where I started?" she asked, partly grateful and partly annoyed she'd been running in circles. "Near the jungle where I was taken?"  
"You are across the way and quite a way away," the mouse said, still holding her tiny sword.  
The White Rabbit turned and checked his pocket watch, "We're almost out of time, thank you Dormouse for your help in rescuing us."  
Clary looked at the two of them, "What was that thing?"  
"An unspeakable evil," Dormouse replied, "And one you must pray you do not cross again. Do not think about heading back into the maze, your journey is onwards now not back." And with that and a nod to the White Rabbit who had turned his gaze to the path ahead, she dived back into the burrow and out of sight.  
"That was a short introduction," Clary said mostly to herself before asking, "If I'm not back where I started then where the hell are we?"  
"These are the Red Forests now come, come now!" He began to hop down the slope towards the trees that Clary admitted looked much less foreboding than the thorned plants she'd been stranded in until now. As they reached the first trees she understood why they were the Red Forests, as despite the fact they looked blackened from fire from a distance, up close she saw that had grown from the dark soil and had a bark of a deep, deep red. Almost like the soil had been laced with blood.  
"So much for less foreboding," she muttered.  
"These trees belong to the Queen," the Rabbit called over his shoulder.  
"The Queen?" she asked as the ground between the trees began to take shape to include a pathway made of small interlocking stones… that looked almost like-  
"Hearts. This is the Kingdom of the Red Queen of Hearts."


	8. The Ghost Road

_So I hope you're all still enjoying the story, I'd love a few more reviews to get your thoughts! The next few chapters are building to some introductions of other TMI characters so buckle up and start guessing! I'd love to hear where you think I've stashed the likes of Jace, Magnus and a few others!_

_-H_

* * *

Isabelle swore loudly when Church disappeared, apparently for good. After a few moments of pacing in circles trying to decide what to do next she walked over to the road that was raised almost four feet above the forest floor with a sharp dirt embankment down either side. She touched the stone surface and felt how cold it was, unnaturally cold. "A frozen road above the forest, like this place couldn't get any fucking weirder."  
What was it the cat had called it, the ghost road? She hadn't always paid much attention to stories when she was a kid but Isabelle was pretty sure there hadn't been ghosts in Wonderland. She glanced both ways into the mass of dark plants. Dawn was at least an hour away and the wind was picking up. "Stay off the path until you find your path" she repeated his parting words, "well that makes so much sense!"  
Scrambling up the embankment she clambered awkwardly onto the road and held out her arms for balance. For a moment it was like the entire world went silent. It was so eerie that she almost dived straight back into the trees but it was just a name, there was no such thing as ghosts and Isabelle Lightwood wasn't about to start seeing dead people hiding in bushes… so instead she began to walk, holding on to the straps of her backpack tightly and checking the empty road behind her every few steps. It was silly but she felt like she was being watched, even though the entire jungle was deserted. "If you're following me Church this is really, really creepy." There was no snarky comment and instead the wind howled louder than ever and Isabelle shuddered violently. It was like something was rushing, something huge, something on mass… it howled again and Isabelle froze, suddenly she could hear what sounded like thunder, getting louder and louder.  
She stopped walking and turned around to face the opposite direction only to receive a face full of frigid air like it had been blasted from a canon. There was something, glowing out there, in the distance. And it was getting brighter and brighter by the second as the air grew steadily colder and the howling got louder. When Isabelle realised what was rushing towards her she screamed and dived off the side of the road, landing heavily in the bushes and scrambling into the shadows to hide. Her heart was pounding painfully in her chest and she peeked out between the branches hardly daring to believe her eyes… ghost road indeed; it was a cavalry of knights. Each solider was dressed in armour that glowed a brilliant white and carried a lance or great sword and a shield. The horses they rode glowed like fresh snow except for their icy blue eyes that were without pupils and the knights themselves were all… dead; creepy skulls under helms and skeleton hands gripping the reigns. Dead knights of a lost kingdom.  
Once the shuddering march had galloped past and into the distance Isabelle gave herself a few moments to calm down before crawling out of the bushes and standing beside the road, looking both ways. It was like they hadn't ever been there and while the air was still cold it wasn't as chilling as it had been as they had thundered by. "Stay off the road," she muttered and resumed her path walking slowly in the wake of the riders this time on the earthy path beside the embankment, keeping her ears and eyes sharp for any more dead men on demon horses. "This is nothing like a kid's story!"  
She was relieved when the sky turned lighter and something began to take shape in the distance, something more than a maddingly straight road and strangely formed trees. It was two more stone pillars, though this time much shorter and perched either side of the end of the stone road before it seemingly magically turned into a dirt path and sloped back down to the level of the forest floor. "Maybe this isn't my path," Isabelle murmured examining the end of the ghost road and wondering where in the hell the riders had gone… there was no hoof prints in the dirt on the other side of the pillars, then again, did ghost horses leave prints? But there was something else up ahead, in a clearing several hundred feet from the end of the road; a fork in the dirt path and a wooden sign. "This way," Isabelle read aloud, marvelling at the strange calligraphy but frowning too because while the sign encouraged her to take a path it also pointed down both of the forks of the path. "Fuck."

Clary hurried after the White Rabbit, "Who is the Queen of-"  
"Shh! Dawn has broken, we must go quietly through her forest. Keep up and keep quiet!"  
"But-" Clary sighed and continued to follow. The Queen of Hearts, a talking Rabbit and a sword wielding Dormouse… "Uh, Mr Rabbit? This might sound really ridiculous but where the hell am I?"  
It hadn't seemed like too urgent a question in the maze of thorns but now it was starting to seem like, "You're in Wonderland and in the Red Kingdom."  
Clary's jaw dropped and she stumbled along the path of hearts mumbling, "Please let me be drunk and dreaming, please let me be drunk and- holy crap!" They rounded a curve in the path and before her was a gleaming castle. "-dreaming," she finished.  
The White Rabbit turned, his nose twitching as he came to a stop in front of a vast moat, "You are not dreaming. Welcome to the Castle of Hearts."  
"Well fuck me," Clary exclaimed quietly.  
Due to her shrunken size the castle with its towering crimson towers and heart-shaped gates was vast and foreboding. "That's quite an invitation."  
"Excuse me?" Clary snapped around to look at the White Rabbit, sure she hadn't misheard his innuendo only to find that there was no one standing beside her. "Wait, where the fuck did you go?" she completed a circled only to find that she was completely alone. Swallowing her rising unease she pushed her way through the grass that was as tall as her to the edge of the moat where she froze, feeling bile in her throat… the grey water was full of floating, decapitated heads.


	9. Cracks

_Well guys I'm going to start by wishing you all a Happy New Year! It's 2013 and this year I'm going to try and be better at updating more often and getting these fanfics really going and so in this chapter we've got the lead up to one of the most significant events in the early part of the story plus the introduction of another TMI character!  
Reviews and feedback would be greatly appreciated and I hope you all enjoy this chapter! :) _

_-H_

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"Stay off the path until you find your path"… had Church meant that her path hadn't been the Ghost Road, but that she now had to pick one of these two roads? Isabelle stamped her foot impatiently and glared at the sign that encouraged her to go both ways.  
Anxiously she glanced behind her but there was no sudden rush of cold wind and dead riders. First she studied the left hand fork; the path was well-worn and clear, it twisted off through the thinner trees and around the corner of a large rock face before disappearing into the lightening sky. The other to her right was a narrow, single track dirt path that headed back into the thicker, darker trees that she couldn't see beyond. Well, logic said that she should take the path to the lesser of two evils, and yet, given all she had learned of this world, sometimes she bet the nicer option turned out to have the more sinister twist. Wonderland logic told her to ignore the path that led to sunshine and instead turn down the dark road, gather her skirts and her confidence and embrace whatever came next.  
Determined, Isabelle started off down the path into the jungle wishing that the dense foliage would allow a little more of the dawn light through as she was growing sick of darkness and trees. There was a smell of dampness and moss despite the fact there hadn't been any rainfall since she'd arrived and it made her more uneasy. Several times she was sure she heard twigs snapping from branches and would spin in a complete circle to make sure no one was sneaking up behind her, her hands hurt from how tightly she clasped the straps of her backpack and her feet were beginning to ache with blisters and exhaustion. When the next noise came much closer Isabelle stopped dead and glanced up at the winding branches that made a kind of arch over the road, obscuring the sky, "Whose there?" she called out.  
"We chose a path I see."  
Isabelle sighed in something close to relief as a fierce grin appeared out of the shadows, "Church! Where the hell have you been?" When the cat appeared in full he was hanging upside down like a possum from his long tail that was curled around a branch. "I was almost trampled to death back there!"  
"You didn't heed my warning about the traffic on the Ghost Road, the dead do not make way for anyone. They have no need to."  
"They just vanished… like into thin air."  
"The Ghost Road leads to many places and no places, no such places mortals like yourself can follow or fathom-"  
"Yeah, yeah it's a weird fucking world I get it and I won't be travelling on any more Ghost Roads. Now, I've chosen my path and come down this creepy forest tunnel so can you at least tell me where I'm going?"  
Church's tail uncurled and he floated down until he was perched above Isabelle's nose, "There is a place up ahead where you might find aid for what you seek, that is, if you are the right sort of person."  
"And who determines if I'm the right sort of person?" she demanded.  
Church grinned again and began to float ahead, expecting her to follow. "I hope you're in the mood for tea."  
Isabelle grumbled and followed noisily, "I could go something stronger."

It was by far the most nightmarish thing Clary had ever had to face in her life- and she had a bank of horrific memories to challenge it with. Wrinkling her nose she balanced her weight and began to paddle with the stick she had dragged over to the waters edge from a nearby bush. The decapitated head bobbed slightly in the murky water of the moat but with a little effort she convinced it to go in the direction of the castle wall, trying her very best to ignore both the decomposing smell and the icy blue eyes of the dead man she was using as a boat. Bile rose up her throat and she swallowed it back down as they bumped heads with several other unfortunate souls on the crossing, which seemed to take forever as she was so tiny that the effort it took for each paddle drained her of what little energy she had left. Wherever the White Rabbit had disappeared to it was clear that there was some purpose to her being brought to the castle. She still couldn't quite believe she had somehow managed to end up in a storybook world, not that it was anything like a children's tale… had this been the place the birds had attempted to bring her? Was Max here?  
Looking around at debris of human remains she hoped not. Wonderland, ironically, was no place for children.  
When finally she reached the tiny embankment before the sharp wall of stone Clary made one last jump and landed on dry land with a gasp of relief- the head began to spin slowly in the water and floated back into the sea of skulls in the moat. "I hope I never have to do that again," she muttered looking up at the vast wall and wondering how the hell she was meant to find the energy and courage to climb it when she noticed a crack at the base just tall enough for her to duck through. Clary peered around the corner and into the darkness, hoping that it wasn't a shallow cut in the rock but would lead all the way through to the other side without running her into any danger. For once it seemed like Wonderland was on her side and several minutes of fumbling in the dark later she emerged onto a beautifully tended lawn behind several rows of rosebushes.  
Only, there was something very off about the flowers that were growing there… Clary scrambled forwards, taking care that no one was about to see a girl as small as a mouse scurrying across a lawn, and ducked under one of the huge flower heads that drooped a little like it was bowing. It was something about the texture of the rose petals that wasn't right, and Clary stood on her tiptoes to touch one only to withdraw her hand with a half-cry of horror.  
Someone had painted the roses so that they were crimson and no longer the white flowers that had been planted; except, they hadn't used any kind of paint that she was familiar with. Her mother, Jocelyn, had been an artist and in her youth Clary had dabbled in sketching and painting herself, and this was no oil based colour or acrylic… it was much darker and thicker than that, clotted even- like _blood_.  
"Floating heads in the moat and bloodied flowers in the garden," she muttered and someone behind her coughed meaningfully.  
"The Castle of Hearts has long held many dark secrets."  
"You disappeared on me!" Clary accused, spinning around to find the White Rabbit watching her with his bright eyes, one paw clasping his pocket watch.  
"You found your way inside, this proves what we believed all along."  
Clary shivered in the sudden rush of cool wind that battled along the lines of rosebushes, "Who are _we_?"  
"You must come quickly little girl!"  
Before he could hop off anywhere however Clary put herself in front of him and crossed her arms over her chest, "My name is not little girl."  
"Well you are very little-"  
"Only because of that stupid drink you gave me! And I won't move another inch or follow you anywhere until you give me another one to make me tall again! Well, tall-er… as tall as I was before!" She made herself stop talking and raised her eyebrows at the White Rabbit.  
His nose twitched and he glanced nervously over his shoulder, "Now is hardly the place- we're in the garden of the Queen of Hearts, her henchmen are everywhere… spies, loyal courtiers. We're late, very late, you must come-!"  
"I'll come with you when you make right my height!" When she realised she'd managed to sound like a Wonderland character she mentally kicked herself and held out a hand expectantly. "I mean it Mr Rabbit."  
"But her henchman… Mad March!"  
"_Now._"  
Unwillingly the White Rabbit went into the pocket of his paisley waistcoat and emerged with a slice of cake that was lime green in colour with fuchsia-pink icing, "Eat this and I'll grow?" Clary checked and solemnly he nodded. She bit into the thick sponge and almost choked on the overwhelming flavour that she couldn't begin to describe. The world stood still for a moment, before shuddering violently and suddenly everything began to shrink… or Clary began to grow, or something happened that meant suddenly she was standing beside the same rosebush only now she could see over it and into the garden, right into the pitiless black eyes of- Clary gasped, "_Jonathan_?"


	10. Why is a Raven like a writing desk

_So guys bit of a dramatic chapter for ya here! Introducing a few major characters from TMI and I'd love to hear your thoughts! _

_-H_

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The table was laid out with a certain flair of chaos. Teapots of varying colours and sizes were scattered between shattered cake-stands and crumbs. The table cloth was patchwork and frayed, and the mismatched armchairs surrounding it were worn but comfortable enough looking to Isabelle who had been stumbling through the jungle for what felt like an eternity. Only three of the seats were occupied, in one sat a Dormouse who was wearing a tunic and sipping from a chipped china teacup. In another was as strange a creature as Izzy had ever seen, and in the third, at the head of the table, was an Angel, or was it just a boy? He looked like he'd been destined for heaven and taken a wrong turn into Wonderland; he was all gold and dressed in the most bizarre clothes that included a very colourful hat.  
When she stepped into the clearing he dropped his teacup into its saucer with a clatter and slowly stood up. "Curious," he said and his golden gaze moved from Isabelle to Church and back again, "I don't remember inviting visitors."  
Church flashed his creepy human grin and rolled over mid-air, "Good day Hatter."  
Holy fuck I'm actually at the Mad Hatter's tea party, Isabelle thought as the boy smiled tightly and gestured at the messy table, "Have some wine."  
She glanced along the teapots, "There isn't any wine."  
"Your hair wants cutting," he shot back.  
Isabelle felt herself getting impatient, "Don't start on my hair, especially when yours is sticking out from under that hat! And why offer wine when there isn't any wine?"  
"Why show up to a tea party with no invitation?"  
Isabelle pointed at Church, "Ask him."  
But the infuriating cat simply vanished and the Hatter chuckled, "And it gets curiouser."  
"It's getting old," she muttered.  
The Hatter moved away from the table and walked towards her. When they were almost nose to nose he bent his head a little, for she was almost the same height, with an inquisitive look in his beautiful eyes and asked, "Why are you here?"  
"Church- or the cat, whoever he is- brought me here. I'm looking for my brother."  
"A lost brother, how careless."  
"He said you might be able to help me."  
"A quest!" he exclaimed, turning to face the table where the Dormouse had fallen asleep. "A quest with this girl with a lost brother!"  
"It hardly seems worth bothering," said the odd creature.  
The Hatter looked outraged, "How dare you Dodo, Dodo how dare you!"  
Isabelle interrupted, "Look I already lost one brother, I can't lose two."  
"Careless, how careless, and yet you obviously care more than less because you're here and not elsewhere where you brothers aren't."  
"Brother," she corrected him, "My younger brother. He fell through to Wonderland and we- hey look I didn't lose him on purpose!" she snapped when she saw he was shaking his head in dismay. "Can you help me or not?"  
The Hatter looked thoughtful a moment before asking, "And whom shall I be helping?"  
"My name is Isabelle Lightwood and my brother's name is-"  
"Isabelle- _the _Isabelle?" Dodo exclaimed before jumping up from the table and disappearing into the trees causing Dormouse to jolt awake.  
Confused, Izzy looked at the Mad Hatter whose eyes were suddenly gleaming like a lions. "Curiouser and curiouser… you were so much muchier before, you've lost your muchness."  
"Muchness?" she repeated, wary and exhausted of riddles and strangeness. "I've never been here before! You don't know me!"  
"Well no, you've lost your muchness…"  
"Why do you keep using that word?"  
He leaned in close and she noticed that he had a chipped tooth. She hated to admit that there was something agonisingly familiar about him, he whispered, "Why is a Raven like a writing desk?"  
"You really are mad," she whispered back and the Angel smirked making him seem suddenly teenage like.  
"Mad enough to help you, we're all mad here."

The cold, black eyes that were so horrifyingly familiar stared back at her with a curious glint. Behind her the White Rabbit gasped, "Mad March!" before diving headlong into the rosebushes. The boy made no move to follow him, his gaze was locked on Clary's, his head tilted to the side slightly as if he were trying to place her in his memories.  
"And who do we have here?"  
His voice was the same too, but it also held a note of something playful, something dangerous. Clary swallowed hard and tasted her own blood in her mouth, she had bitten her lip in fright. The boy before her was almost the spitting image of the one person she had desperately been trying to forget ever existed for the past four months; her brother, Jonathan Morgenstern. There wasn't much about Clary's past or childhood that she was fond of, with her mother running away from her abusive father when she was three, leaving behind her son Jonathan who would grow up in the monster's own image. She had been forced by the custody agreement to spend each and every summer with them in the country manor, exposed to her father's merciless discipline and her brother's cruel and violent turns… until he had died in the house blaze four months ago that ended her torturous visits. Her father now lay in a coma, perhaps never to wake, and somehow she had been the only survivor, forced to live with herself knowing she had ended the life of her only sibling who was now standing before her in the middle of a fairytale nightmare.  
The only difference between Jonathan Morgenstern and this Mad March was his hair, no longer fair like the sun but midnight black and straggly. His smile was the same though, the grin that spelled out pain and suffering, "Do you not have a voice, girl?"  
"I'm Clarissa," she whispered in a half-choked voice.  
"And how did you come to end up in my Mistress' gardens?" He leaned closer as if he could pick out the lie from her eyes.  
"I- I followed a rabbit," she answered honestly, "But I'm not from here, I'm from another world."  
Mad March began to walk around her in a slow circle of appraisal. "Not from here… I can see that. You have something- different, about you. The Queen will be very interested in what lies inside that pretty head of yours…" Clary swallowed hard thinking of the moat of heads she'd had to cross. "But how did you get inside the Castle?" His scrutiny was making her tremble in fear, especially as she was clutching the remnants of the fabric of her tunic to her while his gaze lingered in places she'd rather he couldn't see. "A mystery indeed, one which I don't think we'll bother the Queen with until I'm certain." He stepped much closer and Clary flinched as he put a long, cool finger under her chin, forcing her to look up at him, "My dear Clarissa you and I are going to have such fun, but first-" In a moment of apparent chivalry he took off his black cloak and draped it around her shoulders leaving him in a crimson tunic that made his hair look even blacker. Then he offered her his arm and there was no hint of a choice whether she could refuse, "Come."


	11. Until We Meet Again

_Phew, okay back again and sorry for the wait between chapters! This one is quite a bit longer than some of the others since so much is revealed and since I worked so hard on it I'm going to put out a massive **pretty please **for a few reviews :) Especially as it ends on a bit of a cliff-hanger and I'll need some good motivation to update the next chapter! ;) (Not that I'm blackmailing anyone or anything)  
Anyway, plenty to discover and speculate over... ENJOY!_

_-H_

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Isabelle breathed a sigh of relief and sank into a vacant chair, "You will, you'll help me?"  
Hatter too reclaimed his chair, "But first tea!"  
Dormouse reached for her teacup and said, "Funny another one showing up, didn't I tell you Hatter, didn't I tell you?"  
"You told me indeed, but in telling me you did not tell Caterpillar."  
"You think we should?"  
"I think we shouldn't not, but his journey is not ours and ours is not for him to join I think."  
Isabelle followed the conversation as best she could, "Who is Caterpillar?" Hatter and Dormouse ignored her, "And what do you mean by 'another one'?"  
The golden eyes of the Mad Hatter met her own and she felt another jolt of familiarity that she couldn't place, this tea party, his eyes, it all reminded her of a dream… "Another one of you my dear, but quite clearly not you for you are Isabelle and the other Dormouse tells me was not of your blood."  
Something clicked in Isabelle's head and she exclaimed, "Clary! You've seen Clarissa, is she hurt, is she okay?"  
Dormouse shrugged, "Last I saw her she was heading off into the Hearts Forest with the White Rabbit, she seemed quite… out of proportion."  
The tiny mouse smirked and Isabelle felt her heart sink. "Where is this forest? We need to find her!"  
"If the White Rabbit has her she will be on Caterpillar's path, and I have already explained that the path they follow is not ours for it is theirs. You chose this path, Isabelle, you chose the path that lead you here of your own willingness, and until another crossroads come our way this is the path that we shall lead you."  
She dropped her head into her hands and groaned, "Right now I'm regretting pretty much all the choices I've made."  
"Regret is such a flimsy thing and utterly useless," the Mad Hatter said matter-of-factly.  
Silently agreeing but determined not to let him know that she did, Isabelle raised her head and asked, "Okay so if I chose a path that means we can't find Clary because she chose another…" she paused to make sure she had it all correct and the Hatter nodded with an encouraging smile, "Then we can't reunite until another choice comes into play and only if we both chose the same or similar paths?"  
"You see, once you stow your regret it's much easier to look forwards and forwards we shall go!" He stood in one fluid movement and Dormouse smacked her lips as she drained her cup and joined him on the brim of his hat.  
Isabelle too stood but much more slowly, "Will you at least explain to me where we're heading?"  
The Hatter pondered for a moment with his head cocked to one side as he gazed at her, Dormouse had to hold on to the ribbon to stop herself falling to the ground. "We must take her to Caterpillar!"  
"I thought you said that we weren't on his path?!" Isabelle ground her teeth in frustration.  
"Correct, but what we must know is exactly who and what you are before I take you any further into Old Wonderland… you claim to be Isabelle, but not _the _Isabelle, _just _Isabelle and you should know that I don't take _just _anybody on quests such as this!"  
"So if I'm not _the _Isabelle?" she was almost afraid to ask and the Hatter grinned almost as wide as the cat.  
"Well then _my _Isabelle, we'll have to figure out what we're going to do with you."

Being so close to Mad March made Clary's skin prickle with anxiety. So far he'd made no comment to suggest he was somehow her brother… which was really fucking stupid, she reminded herself, because Jonathan, the real Jonathan, was dead. Regardless the dark haired version led her into the cold stone castle and down a winding staircase into what she came to recognise with a sinking feeling in her gut as the dungeons.  
"These don't actually get used much," he said as if she cared. "The Queen tends to demand her victim's execution instantaneously, so we shouldn't be- disturbed, while we attend to the matter of who you are."  
She shivered as he escorted her inside a cell. At first she thought he was going to shut himself in with her and dreaded the moment he'd reclaim his cloak and leave her practically naked, but instead at the last moment he closed the door between them and locked it with a heavy key that he attached back to his belt. "Unfortunately you're going to have to wait down here while I return to my Mistress and make some excuse to leave her side long enough that we can…" his eyes travelled up her once and she shrank back from the bars, "get to know one-another. And then you can tell me exactly how you ended up inside the Castle."  
I think I'd rather someone chopped my head off than left me alone indefinitely down here with you, Clary thought and watched him bow to her before returning back up the flight of stone steps and out of sight. She breathed a short sigh when he'd gone and reached out to test the bars only to find they were very well sunk into the surrounding rock. Trying not to panic Clary almost jumped a foot in the air and dropped the cloak when the White Rabbit suddenly reappeared on the other side of her cell, in the same spot Mad March had stood only moments before.  
Clasped in his paws was a small stack of folded cloth, "These are for you." He pushed them through the bars, "There's an apple in there too in case you're hungry."  
"How did you know I'd need clothes in this size?" She pulled apart the bundle and found comfortable looking black trousers that clung like leggings and a tunic in a very light gold material. "I didn't, I raided the storage rooms by the kitchens. The maids are required to wear gold so that they don't get confused as members of the Court. I guessed your size. Now, we don't have much time."  
She quickly pulled on the garments and accepted the flimsy black slipper-like-shoes he'd also pinched. "Much time until what?"  
He gave her a very stern look, "Things might not have gone exactly to plan-"  
"Exactly to plan? Which means that you _weren't_ supposed to lead me right into the lair of some crazy Queen and her insane henchman so that I ended up in the dungeons?"  
"You were always going to end up in these cells, actually, I just didn't mean for them to throw you in."  
She stopped short and stared at him with growing anger, "You wanted me caught here?" She thought about it a moment, "You sent those damned birds for me?!"  
"We needed you here because this is where you are needed! If you agree to help us I'll let you out and we can plot our escape and subsequent-"  
"Why bring me all the way down here only to escape?" Clary clasped her hands around the bars of her cell and leaned as far forwards as possible. "And why should I trust you?"  
The White Rabbit looked at her for a moment with an uncanny expression that was dryly amused, "Well Clarissa Fray because once upon a time, I was just like you." And with that there was no longer a small fluffy rabbit with long ears, a paisley waistcoat and a golden pocket watch before her but a tall, gangly boy with messy hair and bright eyes. He was wearing loose white trousers, a white shirt and the same paisley waistcoat as before, the pocket watch still in his now human hand.  
Her jaw dropped open, "You're a human? You're a boy, and you've led me here as a fucking rabbit? How is that even possible?"  
He smiled, "Chill out Fray, you can call me Simon… and once, a long time ago, I came through the Looking Glass just like you did."  
"You're from the real world."  
His eyebrows shot up, "And is this world not real? I came from another world, Clarissa-"  
"Clary," she interrupted, "Just Clary."  
"Your world, Clary. I ran away from home when my father died and somehow… I ended up here."  
She met his hazel eyes and narrowed her own suspiciously, "But why the rabbit?"  
For a moment Simon had the grace to look embarrassed. "When I first got here I thought I was dreaming," he admitted, "And I came upon a cottage in the jungle and it was filled with the most amazing cakes like you've never seen. They were even iced with tiny letters saying 'Eat Me' and I did and… well, I was a rabbit for quite some time before I mastered the art of being able to turn back into a boy. And now, with practice, years and years of practice, I can change almost at will. I had help of course."  
There were so many questions Clary was bursting to ask him, "Who helped you? How long have you been here and why haven't you gone back? Can we even get back?"  
Simon laughed and swayed a little on his feet, Clary estimated he was about sixteen like her and Isabelle. "One question at a time Fray. I have been here in Wonderland years nearly two-hundred-and-sixty-three, but that hardly relates to the time from your world, no one has quite figured it out but I'd guess since I was ten when I fell through the Looking Glass I've been here almost six or seven years? And as to who helped me well there's a force in these parts that has been here even longer than the Houses of Cards… his name is Caterpillar and it was he who found me hopping about in the Dutchess' cabin trapped in the body of a rabbit. It's part of his mission to help those in need, if it suits him of course, and he often enquires after those from the other side of the Looking Glass."  
"So there are others? More people, children from New York?"  
"Not just New York, Fray but wherever the Looking Glass goes. Some go back, not all survive… Wonderland has become a very dangerous place in the last century."  
She looked at him curiously, "So since you've survived why haven't you gone home?"  
He was quiet so long she didn't think he was going to say anything when, "Perhaps I'll tell you one day."  
"I'm not planning on staying long," she warned, "I'm here to find Max and Isabelle and get the hell back to New York before anyone realises we snuck out of the house. If you say time runs differently I hope to be no more than a few hours."  
Simon looked suddenly agitated, "But don't you know why you're here Clarissa Fray?"  
"To find Max- look I've explained all of this already! Would you just help me out of these damn cells so that I can get back to the jungle to look? I've wasted enough time, why did you even bring me here?" she accused suddenly, "You didn't answer me before, why bring me here only to escape? Not really the actions of someone who has supposedly been sent to help me."  
"I had to bring you here, because this is where you're needed," he repeated.  
"You're not making any sense again," she said warily, "Obviously ignoring the fact that I'm accepting you're a New Yorker who has the ability to turn into a fluffy bunny that's obsessed with the time!"  
Simon sighed impatiently, "Look. When the boy came through the Looking Glass Caterpillar predicted that those who followed would be the ones to break the curse. And you are the one that followed!"  
"The boy? Do you mean Max? Who the hell _is_ this Caterpillar person?"  
"You have to break the curse Clary!" Simon came right up to the bars. "You say you want to go home but the Hearts have all the power in this House of Cards and you came through this way by accident, to leave by the same path you must defeat them and to do that you have to break the curse that you caused!"  
Clary threw her hands in the air, "What fucking curse Simon? And how could I have caused it? I've never been to Wonderland before, I didn't know it fucking existed before a talking rabbit told me! I came here because it's my fault that Max fell through that damn mirror and I'm finding him and taking him home to the Lightwoods, end of!"  
Before Simon could muster a counter argument a tired voice echoed from the shadows of her cell. Clary jumped about a foot and screamed, she hadn't realised she wasn't alone behind the bars.  
"What were those words you used? Lightwoods and Axes?"  
Clary uncovered her mouth since she had clamped a hand over it to kill her scream, "I said Max Lightwood, whose back there?"  
"Since last time Clary, the curse has to be lifted, the curse from the time of old Wonderland."  
She hushed Simon with a look and he fell back to lift a candle from its place on the wall so he could hand it to her. Clary lifted it high to rid the cell of the deep shadows hiding the other prisoner. "Who is that?"  
"The White Knight, the Queen captured him over three moons ago. Caterpillar said he would not be free until the curse has been lifted and without him the resistance will fail and you can never leave Wonderland."  
Clary's eyes flew wide when the light finally recognised the face of the boy in battered white armour, "Oh my God," she whispered as his dark eyes lifted to meet hers in the glare of the flame, "Alec?"

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_Dun-dun-duuuuuuhn! Sorry, I was feeling dramatic... so yeah, reviews please! :D _


	12. The Old Forest Way

_Hey guys! Sorry for the slight gap between uploads, been a bit distracted receantly with my new job and things got a bit mad. But what's important now is that I'm back on track and have had some cool ideas for what's coming next in this story... plus I have the ending totally figured out so I'm not giving up on this fic and I hope you guys don't either.  
This is an Isabelle chapter since we ended on a bit of a cliff-hanger with Clary in the last one, but I promise to upload a Clary chapter by the end of the week! So enjoy and please, please review!_

_-H_

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The Dormouse was singing a sweet song in a language that Isabelle didn't understand.  
"What is she singing about?" she asked the Hatter who was swaying along to the melody as he walked with the small mouse on the brim of his hat.  
"I have no idea," he mused, "It's all total gibberish!"  
Isabelle sighed, apparently walking through the jungle in Wonderland couldn't even be normal. Then she thought, I'm walking next to a freaking fairytale character and a mouse singing nonsense, how the fuck could this be any kind of _normal?  
_Again she felt a pang of worry and longing for Clary. The Dormouse had said she was with someone called the White Rabbit but it was her comment about being 'out of proportion' that had her really worried.  
"How far is it to Caterpillar?" she asked, knowing any questions she had about Clarissa would just end up in her being given another lecture about different paths.  
"That depends," the Hatter replied.  
"On?"  
"How long it takes for him to wish us to find him."  
"You mean you don't actually know where we're going?" Isabelle demanded.  
The Mad Hatter turned his beautiful golden eyes on her and she saw they were full of mirth. He found her worry over the ways of Wonderland amusing. "Once upon a time," he began and she had to refrain from rolling her eyes in case he abandoned her in the middle of the jungle, "You found adventures through imagination quite fascinating, though you always did have a temper," he allowed when she noisily blew air out of her cheeks.  
"Would you just answer a damn question properly please? And stop insisting I've been here before! I'm a stranger until proven otherwise!"  
The Hatter threw his head back and laughed, and Dormouse stopped her strange, nonsense song to cling on for dear life. "Oh my Isabelle what fun you are! When Caterpillar decides to see us it shall be a meeting indeed!"  
"So you do know where we're going?" she asked again.  
"Indubitably! Undoubtedly! I'm surprised you haven't worked it out yet!"  
She looked around at the path they were following, it worked its way through a tunnel of very beautiful trees that formed a kind of canopy over their heads and walls either side, it was only then she noticed the slight curve of the path and exclaimed furiously, "We're walking in circles!"  
"Correct!" Dormouse cried, "Welcome to the Old Forest Way, just Isabelle! Once in the tunnel you are tunnel bound until your destination is ready to receive you!"  
"Not many people use the tunnel any more," Hatter explained, hushing Dormouse with a gentle pat on the head. "Not since the Hearts took over."  
For a moment Isabelle thought she heard voices behind them, but when she checked her shoulder there was no one. "Are we alone in the tunnel?"  
"Most likely not," Hatter said calmly, "But we are one our own path."  
Isabelle clutched the straps of her backpack and tried not to freak out. There was so much about Wonderland that she couldn't begin to understand. "We'll be walking a while?"  
"Caterpillar is a very busy man!" Dormouse told her, peeking over the brim of Hatter's hat to watch her.  
"Then will you help me understand more, Hatter?" she pleaded, "Tell me a story."  
"A story? I know a great story about a lobster and-"  
"No," Isabelle interrupted rudely, "No I want you to tell me the story of old Wonderland and the curse and _the _Isabelle. I want to hear that story."  
For a moment Hatter was quiet and Isabelle glanced sideways to see his mesmerising eyes had turned a very sorrowful amber. "That is not a happy story, dear Isabelle. Wouldn't you rather hear one with a happy ending?"  
"I'm not all that into happy endings," Isabelle insisted, "I find them to be a little too fantastical for what I've come to believe."  
Hatter sighed very heavily and conceded, "Very well, I fear you are correct, there are not too many happy endings, not anymore. Not even in Wonderland."

_In a time of long ago, but not too long ago, Wonderland was a thriving world for those who didn__'__t fit in anywhere else. A land of riddles and puzzles and chess games and tea__…__ the kind of land that required a gentle handling and a willingness for a bit of madness. The White King was old but young of heart, with a voice that spoke to the people, plants and personalities of all those in his great Kingdom, which one day he would pass down to his eldest daughter when it came time for his next great adventure.  
The White Queen was everything Wonderland needed. She sang to the flowers and danced with the trees. She prepared to wear the crown by wearing beautiful hats so that her head would always know the weight of what she must carry; so the King hired the bestest and maddest off Hatter in all of Wonderland as she never was to wear the same hat twice. However, when the time of her Coronation came, all of Wonderland gathered to see her take the throne only to witness instead the birth of the colour red into the White Kingdom, and the palace flowed with blood.  
You see, the White King had two daughters, the first fair and fair and the other much less so. She took her father__'__s head, his sister__'__s crown and the throne she so desired and her army of cards washed through the places of Wonderland like a bloody plague.  
The Red Queen of Hearts left her sister in the ruins of old Wonderland; the King's White Knights all died in the Great Battle, all except one who was cursed; A brave new Knight who stood tall among the others, only to have the most awful-dreadfulness put upon him and he became so sane he forgot who he was. Those of us who survived; Caterpillar, Dormouse, Dodo, etc and me lived in the shadows of what once was.  
That was until a little girl came to us through the Looking Glass we thought shattered by the Hearts. Isabelle of Light and she was the one to break the curse, you see. The White Knight must regain a little madness, the White Knight must return to the Kingdom of the White Queen if the House of Cards is to come tumbling down. Our brave little Isabelle fought with everything she had, relighting the fires of old Wonderland, bringing hope to us all, even facing down the Queen of Hearts with the kind of fire in her belly that we thought was extinguished here__…__ but ultimately she was too small, too young, to sad to succeed back then. And hope fell to memory once more, and Wonderland came to rest in a shadow of the wrong kind of madness from which it has never again resurfaced. _

When the Hatter finished his story they had come to a slow stop in the tunnel and Isabelle was surprised to feel her eyes welling up. She reached out and touched his shoulder, "You were once Hatter to the Queen?"  
"I failed her," he murmured, "I couldn't protect her from the Hearts."  
"So this Isabelle character that everyone has been waiting for, that's her job, to free this White Knight and start a war against the Hearts?"  
Dormouse spoke up again, "It's not freeing him from the Hearts that's the problem. It's freeing him from himself that's the trick, and only the Isabelle can. Only she knows how."  
Something was making Isabelle uncomfortable, a feeling she couldn't identify. "You know," she said, only half joking, "Part of me hopes I'm not _the _Isabelle- because that sounds like an awful lot of pressure to restore an entire Kingdom."  
Hatter's eyes widened a little and his infuriatingly contagious smile was back on his face, "Oh look, we're here earlier than I thought." His tone changed so suddenly for the soft, sad, melonous one he had used to tell his story to once again sound like an excitable child.  
Isabelle turned around and where there had been a wall of branches before there was now an opening that led from the earthy path they'd been walking onto soft grass, though whatever came next was obscured by a haze of thick purple smoke. "What's this?"  
"Come along possibly-just-Isabelle," Hatter said striding into the fog without a backwards glance and disappearing completely though his voice still called out, "It is time to know who you are!"


	13. The Rhyming Returns

_The promised Clary chapter, last we saw her she was having a conversation with a rabbit that is also Simon and has just realised she's sharing a cell with Alec Lightwood after she was thrown in by the dark haired Wonderland version of her dead brother... everyone up to date? Anyway, hope y'all like this chapter, loads more to come with this fic, had some really fun ideas and I'm really excited to get into the habbit of uploading waay more regularly but some encouragement in the form of reviews would be helpful ;)_

_-H_

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Holy fucking hell, Clary thought as she paced agitatedly along the length of her cell. This could not be happening.  
"You have to calm down!" Simon was calling angrily through the bars but she threw up her hands in a dismissive gesture and continued back and forth. "This is not helping, we're running out of time!"  
Clary stopped and came closer to him with a fierce glare, "How the fuck is this even possible!" Freaking out didn't even begin to cover how she was handling the news that Alec Lightwood, missing elder brother of six years to Isabelle and Max, whose disappearance was the last straw in his parent's failing marriage and the focus of an overly intrusive police manhunt was sitting in some dungeon in a fairytale land.  
Simon looked grim, "He came to be here the same way we all did Clary, he ran away-"  
"That's not what I mean and you fucking know it!" she shouted, pointing behind her at the morose Knight who was still slumped against the wall, "How does he not know _who he is_?!"  
"While it may have been only six years since Alec -as you call him- left in the time of your world, it has been far longer in Wonderland years," Simon answered gravely.  
Clary dropped her head into her hands, "This cannot be happening. You don't know what his disappearance did back home! It tore apart his entire family. And you're telling me he's been here this whole fucking time?"  
"Not in this cell exactly, no."  
"Then why did he not come home?"  
He looked crossly at her, "Don't you understand Clary, not all of us come here by choice or in search… we are castaways or runaways or accidental tumblers through the Looking Glass. Getting back is not so easy and over time Wonderland starts to chip away at our old memories, our old selves. Those who have been here longest have spent more time in this world than the one we were born into and soon those memories fade until they are no more!"  
"He can't remember anything?" she asked desperately, thinking how crushed Isabelle was going to be and wondering how the hell she was going to tell her. "His family, his home, his friends?" Simon shook his head and Clary stared over her shoulder at the hunched form of Alec Lightwood, "Here he's a Knight?" "The last Knight, the White Knight and hand of the White Queen who hides far in the corners of Wonderland while her sister rules the Red Kingdom… Clary Fray you have to break the curse, the curse that binds his memories since you were last here!"  
"But Simon I've never been to Wonderland before!" she repteated.  
Simon looked stubborn, "Caterpillar is never wrong, he predicted that those who followed-"  
Clary groaned suddenly and banged her head a few times off of the bars, "_Those, _Simon! _Those _who followed, I didn't come here alone! Isabelle, Isabelle Lightwood, Alec's younger sister and Max's older sister… the two of us came here together to find Max when he went missing…" she looked down at the pattern the bars made in the shadow of the candle, "she's been here before?"  
"Caterpillar warned she might not remember, she was very young."  
"She came in search of Alec," Clary muttered, "But she couldn't break the memory curse."  
"Until his curse is broken he cannot successfully lead the rebellion under the White Queen. And until then I'm afraid that the Looking Glass will only work one way."  
Clary's eyes were shining with sudden determination, "Then we have no choice, we have to break out of here and reunite him with Isabelle and Max too… you don't know where he is do you? Max? He's so young and this place is so-"  
"I haven't seen the second boy, I only knew of the White Knight, but Caterpillar may know more."  
"Then we find Caterpillar and we find answers and Izzy. She'll never be the same when she realises that Alec has been here this whole time. It's been hell Simon, hell on her family you have no idea…" she looked at him properly, "That's why it's important that the kids who arrive here get home. What the people they left behind are going through… if we can make the Looking Glass, or whatever it's called, work in reverse we can take them all back with us."  
Simon's face was expressionless, "Some don't want to go back."  
"Why did you stay?" she asked curiously. "And how, if others have lost their memories, have you retained yours?"  
He swallowed, "Because of the cake, the one that turned me into a rabbit. When I'm the White Rabbit I'm a character of Wonderland, I forget I am even a boy, that's why it's so hard to change back and that's why I'm obsessed with time and being late, because I was late for the- for my dad's funeral because I'd run away… so my memories are lost to me as long as I'm an animal, I've spent so little time here as a human they haven't had time to leave me."  
"If I can offer you a chance to go back, you could take it."  
"My family think that I'm dead, Clary Fray. I went back, before the Hearts blocked the Looking Glass for good. They think I'm dead and gone and so this is the only place for me now."  
It was obvious he didn't want to say any more on the subject so Clary turned her efforts to their plans for escape. "You got me here you had to have an escape route."  
"I have a few things to take care of before I can break you and the White Knight out of this cell. I'll be back before this hour is out." With a small pop she was staring at the paisley-clad rabbit once again. "Oh and Clary Fray?" he called out, pausing before he hopped away, "If Mad March is to return before I, you'd do well not to mention the resistance, Isabelles or Alecs, otherwise the Queen shall have your head and Wonderland shall be dead."  
He scurried off and Clary turned, trying to think how best to rouse Alec from his depressive slouch. "So glad to see the rhyming is back."


End file.
